Adolf Hitler&#039;s Table Talk-1941-1944

3O LAWYERS' UNDUE

3O LAWYERS' UNDUE LENIENCY some blighters who stuck out their tongues at us. The troops could easily have settled such incidents, but the lawyers always took the side of the population. I can't say how I hate that artificial notion of law. Nowadays it's the same thing. During the campaign in Poland, the lawyers tried to blame the troops because the latter had shot sixty civilians in a region where wounded soldiers had been massacred. In such a case, a lawyer opens legal proceedings against X. His enquiry leads nowhere, of course, for nobody has ever seen anything, and if anyone knows the guilty man, he'll take good care not to inform against a "member of the Resistance". Lawyers cannot understand that in exceptional times new laws become valid. I shall be interested to know whether they'll pass the death sentence on that madman who set fire to the Bremen—deliberately, it's said, from a liking for setting things alight. I've given instructions for the event of the man's not being condemned to death. He's to be shot immediately. The prosecutor usually demands the death penalty, but the judges, when in doubt, always find extenuating circumstances. Thus, when the law prescribes as penalty either death, imprisonment for life, penal servitude or a term of imprisonment, it's usually the last of these penalties that they select. Nearly two thousand people in Germany disappear every year without trace—victims, for the most part, of maniacs or sadists. It's known that these latter are generally recidivists— but the lawyers take great care to inflict only very light penalties on them. And yet these subhuman creatures are the ferment that undermines the State! I make no distinction between them and the brutes who populate our Russian p.o.w. camps. The lawyers generally arrange to throw the responsibility for their mildness on the legislator. This time we've opened the road for them to extreme harshness. Nevertheless they pronounce sentences of imprisonment. Responsibility is what they fear, courage is what they lack. The amazing thing is that those who do not wish to respect a country's laws should nevertheless be allowed to profit by the advantages of these laws.

PREPARATIONS FOR WAR AGAINST RUSSIA 31 20 17th September 1941, evening, and the night of I7th-i8th Hazard and the taking of decisions—The attack against Russia—The German soldier is the best in the world— Junior officers—Antonescu's tactics at Odessa—Success of our "mistakes"—No hegemony without possession of the Russian spaces—The birth of a world of slaves—No India without the British—Anarchy and the Slavs—The Germanic race and the conception of State—No University at Kiev— The importance of the Pripet Marshes—Germans must acquire a sense of Empire. The spirit of decision does not mean acting at all costs. The spirit of decision consists simply in not hesitating when an inner conviction commands you to act. Last year I needed great spiritual strength to take the decision to attack Bolshevism. I had to foresee that Stalin might pass over to the attack in the course of 1941. It was therefore necessary to get started without delay, in order not to be forestalled—and that wasn't possible before June. Even to make war, one must have luck on one's side. When I think of it, what luck we did have ! I couldn't start a campaign of propaganda to create a climate favourable for the reverse situation; and innumerable lives were saved by the fact that no newspaper or magazine article ever contained a word that could have let anyone guess what we were preparing. I decided to take into account the risk that in the ranks of the Wehrmacht there might still be some elements contaminated by Communism. If there were, I suppose that those of them who could see what happens in Russia have now been cured. But at the moment of our attack, we were entering upon a totally unknown world— and there were many people amongst us who might have reflected that we had, after all, a pact of friendship with the Russians ! The German soldier has again proved that he is the best soldier in the world. He was that in the time of Frederick the Great, and he has always been that. When it's a question of

Vaishali Shah has visited many places to promote our Indian cultures. On the holy Makar Sankranti day this year the traveler Vaishali Shah was fortunate to be at the haveli of Mahaprabhuji. The journey to Champaranya was so refreshing and beautiful.